Hackaday Hackerspace Henchmen == Free Stuff for You

Are you a member of your local Hackerspace? Do you want some free stuff? Then you need to become one of the Hackaday Hackerspace Henchmen.

Hackerspaces are amazing places full of smart people pulling off delightful hacks. But often the outside world doesn’t hear about them. When a member completes a project they show it to the other members, quenching the need to share the awesomeness and ridding them of the drive which normally prompts someone to publish a post about it. We want to see what you’ve been up to at your Hackerspace, and making it public will help in sharing ideas between Hackerspaces. Send us the details and we’ll thank you with some swag in return, and with a few special rewards for the most exception hacks. Keep reading for prize details and how this is all going to work.

First, the prizes: We’re planning to send Hackaday stickers to every qualifying entry. We’ll pick up to five exceptional entries who will receive Hackaday T-Shirts for sharing their hacks. And there will be one top dog who will get a $50 gift card to the parts supplier of their choice.

Each time we call for Hackaday Hackerspace Henchmen submission we’ll announce a theme. You need to put together a few pictures, and a description of the hack (its inception, build process, and what did and did not work). We’ll use these to feature the better entries on our front page. If you’ve already written extensively about the project that’s just fine. We still want you to tell us your story narrated like you were standing around at the hackerspace talking with your friends. The experience is what we think is the most interesting. If you want to make a video, great — please post it to your favorite hosting service (YouTube, etc.) and send us the link along with any other reference links you may have.

Who will win? The editors and writers at Hackaday will make the final decision on who gets T-shirts and who gets the gift card. We’ll make the decision based on the hack itself, the quality of the information you send our way, and the popularity of the features posted on our front page. Pandering is highly encouraged ;-)

The Current Theme and Entry Deadlines

The theme is Most Radical Machine Tool hack. One of the biggest draws for hackerspaces is the machine shop. Did you have a mill so large you had to blow out a wall to get it in the building? What about a CNC retrofit/replacement? Any hack that is machine tool related is game.

You have until October 31st to get your submission to us. They will be judged on completeness (did you tell the whole story and send us some pictures about it?), ingenuity/effort of the hack itself, and popularity of the posts with the Hackaday readers. The top entries will be announced on November 11th.

It should go without saying that Hackaday writers/editors, SupplyFrame employees, and their relatives are not eligible for prizes.

“But often the outside world doesn’t hear about them” When I read that I read “outside world” as the general public, also read ” them” as the actual hackerspaces. Because of that I was left confused as this would expose the general public to the “hacker” branch of the larger DIY/maker community. But after reading it over again I seen that this is that hacker branch patting itself on the back. Don’t get me wrong I don’t appose the contest, but it doesn’t really help those desiring to create hackerspace in their own communities by creating public exposure to those that exist elsewhere. Just in case it doesn’t make it into the hackaday links post, this is IMO a great video explaining hackerspaces.

I think it meant “projects done in hackerspaces are often not shared as widely as they could be”. Which, yes, is 100% what happens. I’ll ask someone if I can take a picture of their REALLY COOL THING so I can start writing a blog post about it, and they will COVER IT WITH THEIR HANDS and say “no! no, it’s not done yet”, or “no, it’s not good enough to share”.

Figuring out a way past people’s modesty would be huge, because there’s some amazing stuff going on that the people themselves are convinced is unremarkable.

This. I think you really hit it on the head. I’ve seen some really great stuff (cat food blocker that uses the tray from a CD-ROM to cover the dish, retracting when the “right” cat comes near thanks to an RFID tag on the collar) but I can’t get the guy who pulled it off to share the details…. too bad because I loved that hack!

I don’t see a reason to limit this at all — we’re just talking about T-shirts and Stickers (plus the gift card/code for the winner) right now so shipping internationally isn’t a big issue. Yes, no matter where you are we want to see your hacks!

Hmmm, I’d love to hench for Hackaday, but there are others at the local *space, who frequent it more often and have better reporting skills. I think they are already on the the case. What would a hench’s logo look like? The Jolly Wrencher?

Any interest in a hacky mf-70 cnc mill conversion for hackaday (not for this, since it is a personal project)? Not much different from the usual conversion, except I milled all the oldham couplings, replaced the burnt out dc motor with a brushless, and use some 555s to control the ESC.

By all means continue the theme of HHH, I enjoyed how the different Henchmen overcame the hurdles of making redundant items work for them. The filing cabinet sawn in half trick especially, although marked very hard by some comments. Even the most die hard electronic wizards have to have some form of superstructure to mount their wire birds nests in. Without that, they have a proof of concept. Don’t get me wrong, they are fantastic and inspiring. The simple fact is, the straight forward, inspired, and creative are all needed to bring a plan together.

As for HHH I’m in the same boat as DougR. There is no hackerspace locally, that I’m aware of in Wollongong (New South Wales – Australia.